


I Hate Naps and You Can’t Make Me Take One, So There!

by MommyMaleficent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Daddy Charming, Emma is grumpy, Emma is tired, Gen, Mommy Snow, Naptime, Non-Sexual Age Play, Temper Tantrums, little Emma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 06:31:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9422582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MommyMaleficent/pseuds/MommyMaleficent
Summary: Mommy never comes to check if Emma naps proper when smallAnd maybe because she doesn’t do that, little Emma doesn’t sleep very much at all.





	1. Chapter 1

When Mommy puts Emma down for a nap, Emma never sleeps, oh no! When Mommy tucks her in, and kisses her forehead and cheeks, and wishes Emma the best of dreams so sweet, Emma pretends she agrees. And so...

When Mommy finally closes the door, and tiptoes to the stairs, Emma opens her eyes and waits until all the coast is clear. She slowly pushes her blankie, covers, and teddy bear out of the way, and tiptoes out of bed all by herself very quietly to play.

She looks at all her picture books, mouthing all of the words, and skips all the ones she doesn’t know or simply hasn’t learned. Sometimes she reads to her bear, sometimes just to herself, but never loud enough for Mommy to hear if she ever does come up. When Emma’s all done with her stories, she puts them all away, nice and neat and clean like they were just yesterday. She gives her bear a little kiss, her blankie a great big sniff, and goes off to start her next (quiet) bout of mischief.

She goes to her toy chest and takes from the top, because Mommy would know she was up if she did not. She picks up Raggedy Ann and whispers hello, and pulls out a tiara, a sun hat, and yellow play-dough.

The play-dough she decides is their food for today, and Ann is the chef and that’s all she can make. The chef wears the sun hat to block out the light because they’re eating the sun and it’s too yellow and bright. Emma’s the princess because the tiara is hers, and not once has she ever eaten something so absurd. She eats it all up (well, she pretends to at least) and thanks Raggedy Ann for a fun lovely feast. But she has one complaint, if she would be so kind—the sun was too square, not round as she likes. Ann thanks her for her words, and says she’ll do better, and her sun would be rounder if the real sun was wetter. Emma shakes her head and sighs at the nonsense of Ann; she must have read Alice—she’s clearly a fan.

And with that said and done, it’s time to end all the fun. She hears Mommy coming upstairs and to her bed she (quietly) runs.

She hurries under her covers and giggles to her bear. Mommy never knows what happens when she’s not here! So Emma closes her eyes and sticks her thumb in her mouth, so Mommy can’t tell what she’s dreaming about. She kicks off a corner of covers, sticks out a foot, so Mommy will think she used all her bed like a girl who napped should. She hides her face in her bear and lets blankie slip to the ground, so if Mommy sees that she won’t think Emma’s been playing around.

And finally, she rolls over and faces the wall, so she’s now on her tummy and Mommy definitely won’t know she’s been up ever at all.

And like she expects, Mommy opens her door, and starts to tiptoe to Emma’s bed across the floor. But her footsteps sound funny, and Emma frowns the best she can. Mommy’s steps are not dainty and light... they’re more heavy and like... a man?

But there’s only one man ever allowed in her room. But he’s at work and he’s busy and it’s hardly past noon. He doesn’t come home for lunch, or go on breaks this early... but she hears her blankie being picked up and she’s just knows...

IT’S DADDY!


	2. Chapter 2

Almost always, Emma’s very good about hiding her extra playtime from Mommy and Daddy, but tonight is not one of those times.

She makes a face at her mashed potatoes before pushing it away and puts her head down on the table, hiding her face under her arms and weakly kicking her feet at the ground.

Daddy puts his big warm hand to her back and rubs slow circles. “What’s wrong, Emma? Can you tell Daddy so he can try to help make it better?”

“No!” she cries, and turns away from him. She holds on tight to the bottom of her seat and stomps her feet some more, eyes to the floor. Tired tears drop onto her little sheep jammy pants.

Mommy comes out of the kitchen and puts Daddy’s plate of food at his spot. Then Daddy gets on one knee in front of Emma to look her in the eye and holds her hands in his big strong ones. Emma squeezes them for a little bit and tries to stop crying but she can’t. She can only hold it in, swallowing, and biting her lip to do it.

“Did my little princess not have a good nap today?” Daddy asks, soft and gentle and so _Daddy_. Emma wants to answer but she doesn’t because she might get in trouble if she says she didn’t nap at all. Mommy would be upset, and Daddy might be dis’ppointed. She half-answers with a low whine from the back of her throat, squeezing her eyes shut and lets her crying tell him everything. More stomping. More crying, all the crying she had to hold for that one moment of quiet.

“Ohhh,” Mommy says in her soft voice, and Emma knows she knows. “David, I don’t think she napped at all today.”

Emma shakes her head. Mommy’s right. She didn’t nap. She didn’t nap and now she’s tired and upset and everything’s wrong.

Daddy lets his big strong daddy hands slide from her elbows back down to her hands and leaves a trail of warm. “Why don’t we try to have some dinner first? Then the three of us can have some cuddle time before bed. Emma can sleep with Mommy and Daddy tonight, okay? How’s that sound?”

Emma sobs as she nods her head, and Daddy uses his thumbs to wipe away all her tears and holds a napkin up to her nose and helps her wipe after blowing. She sniffles and opens her eyes to peek at her parents. Daddy smiles at her and kisses her forehead and then he goes back to his seat on her right, and Mommy sprinkles some shredded cheese onto Emma’s mashed potatoes with broccoli. Emma faces forward and weakly picks up her red Hello Kitty spoon from the bowl. She sniffles again two more times, two little ones. And again.

Try to eat. Mommy made it just for you. Emma asked for mashed potatoes with broccoli. Emma likes mashed potatoes and Emma likes broccoli. And cheese. Emma really loves cheese.

Mommy gently takes her spoon and scoops up a perfect ball of potato-mashed broccoli when Emma takes too long to do it herself. Mommy makes sure to catch lots of cheese on it and goes “Mmmm! So good!” and pretends to eat it just to tease her. Emma opens wide and lets Mommy put the warm ball of healthy mush in her mouth. She chews for a little, just to taste the cheese for the most part, before swallowing it all down like a good girl. Then she opens her mouth for Mommy to feed her again. Mommy does. But she doesn’t want to do it three times, and tonight that hurts Emma’s feelings. If it were any other night, fresh tears wouldn’t pool into her eyes, and her bottom lip wouldn’t stick out in a dangerous pout. She weakly stomps her foot in protest and tries to give Mommy her spoon, but Mommy shakes her head and puts it back into Emma’s bowl.

“Mommy will give you more cheese if you want,” she says, “but you’ll have to eat by yourself like a big girl.”

“Noooo... I don’t want toooooo...” Emma whines. She furiously wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her jammy top when the tears she really doesn’t need right now come flowing down hot, red cheeks. No crying. No more. She looks to her Daddy. If Mommy’s being mean Daddy can’t. “D-Dada?” she asks quietly, sniffling, reaching for him with grabby hands. He can’t be mean when she calls him that. He doesn’t know how. “Dada, please?”

Daddy looks at Mommy but Emma doesn’t look too because she’s not happy with Mommy. He puts down his fork and comes to help Emma. She can feel her tears going away.

He stands behind her and ties Emma's hair back with a rubber band he’s wearing (Emma doesn’t like rubber bands, they’re ouchie) and then moves to stand to her side. Then Daddy takes her hand and makes her hold her spoon to pick up a bit of mashed food while he keeps her hand there and starts to make airplane noises.

“ _Pbbbbbbbbbppt!_ Princess Airlines is looking for a landing! She’s been flying for five days and needs to find a cave! _Pbbbbtt!_ ”

Emma giggles. “Me! Me! I know where a cave is! Right here! Aaaaaah!” she opens her mouth wide to accept the incoming plane. Daddy makes the plane loop before diving straight into her mouth. He and Mommy clap their hands and say “Yay!” to congratulate a safe landing.

“Again, again!”

“Oh, what’s this? Could it be? Another plane has come about! Mashed Broccoli!” Emma giggles all over again, and this time, Daddy does two loops before landing it in her mouth.

But just like Mommy, Daddy only does it a few times before he sits back down on his own chair.

“You’re the pilot, princess. You’re the world’s first princess pilot! Doesn’t that sound exciting?”

“No!” Emma stomps her feet some more. “Don’t wanna be a pilot! Dada does it best! PLEASE?”

“Emma, please stop stomping your feet,” Mommy says before she takes a sip of her water. “It’s rude to the people downstairs.”

“Hmph...” Emma glares at her and stomps again, harder than she’s been doing so far. If Mommy wasn’t so mean before, maybe she’d listen. But it doesn’t change the fact Mommy’s being mean. Mommy doesn’t look at her, and keeps eating her dinner.

“Mommy won’t tell you again, little miss.” Her voice is harder than before, like she’s trying her best not to just yell at everyone.

“Good,” Emma mumbles, “Cuz I dun wanna hear it.”

That makes Mommy look up. She sighs, and all the hardness in her voice disappears. “I know you’re tired, Emma. I know you’re being difficult right now because you didn’t get enough sleep earlier today. But I don’t want the landlord to come upstairs asking what’s going on because you won’t eat your dinner like a big girl—”

That does it. Emma takes her spoon and throws it straight across the room. It hits the wall with a _clunk!_ but that hardly matters when the rapid pounding of two fists against the dinner table cancels out any other noise.

“Because I’m **NOT** a **BIG GIRL**! I’m **FOOOUUUURRRR**!” she roars, shooting up from her chair. She tries to throw her stupid bowl of mush at the wall too but Daddy’s too fast and he grabs the bowl from her before she can throw it. The mashed potatoes and broccoli land on the floor next to her with a _plop_. Before Mommy or Daddy can do anything about it, Emma stomps on it with both her feet, shrieking wildly, making sure to land extra hard with every jump until the mush is completely smushed.

When she’s done she looks to Mommy, angry tears streaming down her face as she takes in big heavy breaths. She’s not a big girl. Mommy knows that. She’s little. She’s too little to be big.

Mommy stands at her side of the table all quiet. She doesn’t look surprised or scared or mad. Emma knows she’s in a whole heck of trouble but she doesn’t care.

“I’m NOT a big girl and I don’t WANNA be a big girl and you can’t make me do **ANYTHING** I DON’T **WANT TO**!” she screams. She’s so focused on yelling at Mommy, when Daddy puts his hand on her shoulder, Emma jumps and yells in surprise. Her crying makes it sound ugly though.

Daddy doesn’t look mad either, but she knows he is. She can hear it in his voice that he’s trying not to yell too. “Emma, please go to your room. Mommy and I will be upstairs to talk with you in a minute.”

Emma wipes her face with her other sleeve and yanks her shoulder from his big rough hand and stomps all the way to the stairs with shaking shoulders and shuddering breaths. She turns back to glare at her parents in one final act of defiance.

“Didn’t wanna eat that stupid dinner **ANYWAY**!” She rips the rubber band out of her hair and throws it to the floor and stomps on it too. Then she stomps all the way up the stairs and slams her door. Inside her room she throws herself onto her bed, wailing and screaming into her pillow for a long time until her throat hurts lots, hitting and kicking her feet against her bed over and over. When she’s tired of that she takes her pillow from under her and tosses it somewhere else.

She grabs her blankie and throws it on the ground, stomping on it like she did her stupid dinner, before sitting down on her bed and just kicking it across her room. It slides across the floor. After a moment, she decides she’s not mad at it and goes and picks it up and hugs it, rubbing the bulky yarn against her cheek. She sniffs it again and again. The smell is safe, soothing. All hers.

She takes it back to bed with her, tosses her teddy where she tossed her pillow, and gathers her blankie into a soft clump to act as her new pillow.

Emma closes her eyes and tries to sleep, a hand under her blankie and sniffing it all the while. Really, really sleep.

She wakes up to Daddy putting a blanket over her and Mommy kissing the side of her head. She tries to roll over to say sorry but they don’t let her.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” Mommy says gently. “We’ll have our talk tomorrow, okay? Mommy loves you.”

“Youtoo...” Emma slurs. With a sleepy sigh, she goes back to her original position and closes her eyes. They hurt.

Daddy kisses her too. “Sweet dreams, Emma. Daddy loves you.”

“Mmhm... lo’e you too...”

* * *

After breakfast the next morning, Mommy and Daddy sit her down on the naughty step to talk to her about her behavior the night before. She hurt Mommy’s feelings when she called her dinner stupid. Also it’s not okay to scream and stomp. Mommy and Daddy let Emma cry a little bit and say sorry and be embarrassed and regretful before they talked some more.

Mommy wants to do something called Quiet Time, and that means at least ten minutes before nap time (but that could change on the day and Mommy will tell her if it does), Emma can’t watch TV or play on the computer or sing songs that are too loud. She can read or color or do puzzles but she has to be quiet... Also Mommy will be sitting in Emma’s room during nap time to make sure she naps like a good girl.

“For how long?” Emma asks quietly, shyly looking up from her lap at her Mommy. She wants to whine about it not being fair but she doesn’t wanna be in more trouble. She’s already on the naughty step right now.

Mommy pets her hair and tucks it behind her ear. “Until I know you actually nap when I put you down in the afternoon.”

Emma bites her lip. “Can I nap in the living room sometime? Please, Mommy?” Mommy and Daddy look at each other. Finally, Daddy nods after a long pause.

“You know,” he says, ruffling Emma’s hair with his big Daddy hand, “that’s not a bad idea, Princess.”

Emma smiles. Mommy and Daddy smile. Then they all hug and Mommy and Daddy kiss both Emma’s cheeks at the same time!

Daddy stays home to watch how Mommy and Emma’s first Quiet Time goes and to make sure Emma follows the rules. Emma does puzzles with Daddy and he reads her a book about saying goodnight. She colors pictures while he watches and tells her they’re pretty. Then Mommy comes in and asks if Emma wants to sleep in her room or the living room. Emma pats the couch behind her and Mommy goes to make her some warm milk in her favorite sippy cup. Daddy goes to get Emma’s blankie and favorite pillow. And her teddy bear just in case.

“Mr. Bear is sad he didn’t get to spend the night with you in your warm bed like your blankie,” Daddy says, “Mommy and I heard him crying all night because he missed you.”

Emma hugs Mr. Bear right away. “We get nap time, okay?” she whispers, wagging a finger at him in scolding, “And we will nap. You can’t make me play with you today because you don’t want to nap. It’s rude.” She looks up at Daddy. “Right, Daddy? It’s rude, right?”

Daddy chuckles and nods. “Oh, yes, very rude.”

Mommy brings Emma her warm milk in her cupcake sippy cup and rubs Emma’s back while she drinks. When it’s time for napping, Mommy puts Emma’s little pillow on her lap and Daddy tucks Emma in. Mommy pats her bottom over and over in a nice even rhythm to help her sleep.

Under her parents’ watchful eye, Emma falls asleep in record time. When she wakes up, Mommy and Daddy are in the kitchen. That night, dinner is much better. No one is crying or screaming or stomping this time. Emma eats all her foods and even asks for seconds, and that makes Mommy very happy.

Maybe nap time’s gonna be okay after all.


End file.
